162 THE JONATHAN PAPERS 



ferent seen through waving masses of yellow. 

 Moreover, when you sit still outdoors, the 

 life of things comes to you; when you are 

 moving yourself, it evades you. Down among 

 the weeds where I sat, the sun was hot, but the 

 breeze was cool, and it brought to me, now 

 the scent of wild grapes from an old stonewall, 

 now the spicy fragrance of little yellow apples 

 on a gnarled old tree in the fence corner, now 

 the sharp tang of the goldenrod itself. The 

 air was full of the hum of bees, and soon I 

 began to distinguish their different tones 

 the deep, rich drone of the bumblebees, the 

 higher singsong of the honeybees, the snarl 

 of the yellow- jacket, the jerky, nasal twang 

 of the black-and-white hornet. They began 

 to come close around me; two bumblebees 

 hung on a frond of goldenrod so close to my 

 face that I could see the pollen dust on their 

 fur. Crickets and grasshoppers chirped and 

 trilled beside me. All the little creatures 

 seemed to have accepted me all but one 

 black-and-white hornet, who left his proper 

 pursuits, whatever they may have been, to 

 investigate me. He buzzed all around me in 

 an insistent, ill-bred way that was annoying. 



